Dark Mode - Feedback please

[AsRock]

Not usable with Seamonkey 2.53.20.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Really great look, been waiting for dark for SOOOO long!

BTW, make sure if you're using Chrome you set the MODE to Dark! I say this because I had my theme set to Morpheon Dark in Chrome, which will show as dark in Chrome even without the mode set to dark, but TPU's dark only shows when the mode is set to dark.

My Spidey avatar really pops now due to the contrast, THANKS!

 

[Carlyle2020hs]

Feedback?

Thanks W1zzard!

 

[TheRealTechGeek]

Just logged in the forum on Firefox it defaulted too black which is awesome so much easier on the eyes; now if and when you can format it too the main website that will be amazing! Thank you.

 

[RokinAmerica]

I like it. This was the only forum I frequent daily that didn't have dark mode.

 

[Thimblewad]

Casually surfing the TPU forums with darkmode...

Clicking on the home page...

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Perhaps use the lighter blue for higher contrast on dark mode?

I just noticed it while browsing - the lower one is for currently highlighted/selected links. This was on Android.

Not my fault. I have not uploaded a banner image, whatever web browser poison you are running shows what the forum software and W1zzard's customizations display by default.

It is acting like you did:

VS Lex, who has not:


Looks like you might have uploaded your 1px GIF as banner as well.

 

[Acuity]

WOOOOOOOWWWWW, thanks guys and thanks W1Z, the forum now is fantastic

 

[Dr. Dro]

Not using dark mode personally and XenForo had not support for it. With the newest version it's much easier to implement and a lot of people keep asking for it

done

Looks amazing now W1zz, thanks!

 

[cvaldes]

It is acting like you did:

View attachment 399555

VS Lex, who has not:
View attachment 399556

Looks like you might have uploaded your 1px GIF as banner as well.

It's entirely possible that I uploaded a 1px transparent GIF as my profile banner image. I set this up so long ago I don't remember.

If that is indeed the case I will definitely leave that 1px transparent GIF banner image in place. W1zzard can use it for debugging purposes since the new dark mode customization should be able to handle both banner and avatar images gracefully.

Dark mode isn't perfect but it's sure better than what was here a week ago that's for sure.

 

[Space Lynx]

After all these years, there is finally an answer to the age old question asked by the Elven Lords! Does Darkness come for the Realms of Man?

BEHOLD! IT IS TRUE! Cast by a wizard cleric!

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

Looks good. i like it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Not usable with Seamonkey 2.53.20.

View attachment 399562

Dark Reader should be compatible with SeaMonkey. Give it a go.

VS Lex, who has not:


Looks like you might have uploaded your 1px GIF as banner as well.

Don't think so. Honestly don't remember and I don't want to mess with it..

EDIT: Just checked it, don't have a banner loaded. Maybe it's an auto colour selection based on my Avatar?

EDIT2: Just looked at @AsRock 's profile and his banner has the same default colour to it. So maybe it's your browser doing something custom?

 

[Raffles]

It’s not. A lot of it is preference and it can be better in a dark environment, but it’s not objectively “better on the eyes”. I am not going to go into detail on light hitting the retina, pupil dilation, refraction and visual acuity, but sufficient to say there is actually a very good reason light background with dark text is still the standard and always will be. In the end, it’s a very person by person basis since no two set of eyes actually see the same.

I said "easier on the eyes" not "better on the eyes".

You feel a bright white background is easier on the eyes?

By all means go into detail on light hitting retinas, pupil dilation, refraction, and visual acuity.

 

[Solaris17]

Casually surfing the TPU forums with darkmode...

Clicking on the home page...
View attachment 399582

https://tdepix.io/pictures/TPU.mp4

provided.

 

[Onasi]

You feel a bright white background is easier on the eyes?

Depending on the lighting conditions, can be. In a well lit environment for reading purposes - absolutely. In a dimly lit or fully dark environment - yes, dark mode will or can be better, depends (see below), mostly by cutting down on screen glare. Similar effect can be achieved by dropping down screen brightness, if we are being fair. But there are arguments to be made that one shouldn’t really use screens in such conditions anyway since the eyestrain WILL be increased and just dark mode won’t be enough to alleviate that.

By all means go into detail on light hitting retinas, pupil dilation, refraction, and visual acuity.

Okay, sure. Using dark mode (and just overall using screens in dimly lit environments) causes the pupil to dilate to force more light to hit the retina. This inherently lowers visual acuity since our pupil acts like a camera aperture, in a way, and a constricted pupil focuses light better and usually SEES better because of it. The extreme example is if you have your pupils dilated to the physiological maximum via drops that you get during an eye exam - your vision blurs significantly. As such, a lot of people see worse with dark mode due to trouble focusing and that causes the eye lens muscles to strain in attempts to compensate. Furthermore, people with refraction errors like myopia and especially astigmatism will often experience halo effects with white on dark text since the light from text bleeds into the background, making reading more straining. That’s one of the reasons why when designing a good dark mode an unspoken rule is to avoid pitch black background and stark bright white text since that exacerbates the issue and can even lead to headaches for users with astigmatism, which can be avoided by using grey-ish background and less bright text, actually. I provided some examples from Apples Reader Mode back in the beginning of the thread.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

 

[wheresmycar]

Depending on the lighting conditions, can be. In a well lit environment for reading purposes - absolutely. In a dimly lit or fully dark environment - yes, dark mode will or can be better, depends (see below), mostly by cutting down on screen glare. Similar effect can be achieved by dropping down screen brightness, if we are being fair. But there are arguments to be made that one shouldn’t really use screens in such conditions anyway since the eyestrain WILL be increased and just dark mode won’t be enough to alleviate that.


Okay, sure. Using dark mode (and just overall using screens in dimly lit environments) causes the pupil to dilate to force more light to hit the retina. This inherently lowers visual acuity since our pupil acts like a camera aperture, in a way, and a constricted pupil focuses light better and usually SEES better because of it. The extreme example is if you have your pupils dilated to the physiological maximum via drops that you get during an eye exam - your vision blurs significantly. As such, a lot of people see worse with dark mode due to trouble focusing and that causes the eye lens muscles to strain in attempts to compensate. Furthermore, people with refraction errors like myopia and especially astigmatism will often experience halo effects with white on dark text since the light from text bleeds into the background, making reading more straining. That’s one of the reasons why when designing a good dark mode an unspoken rule is to avoid pitch black background and stark bright white text since that exacerbates the issue and can even lead to headaches for users with astigmatism, which can be avoided by using grey-ish background and less bright text, actually. I provided some examples from Apples Reader Mode back in the beginning of the thread.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

Yep - i'm a victim!

 

[Raffles]

Depending on the lighting conditions, can be. In a well lit environment for reading purposes - absolutely. In a dimly lit or fully dark environment - yes, dark mode will or can be better, depends (see below), mostly by cutting down on screen glare. Similar effect can be achieved by dropping down screen brightness, if we are being fair. But there are arguments to be made that one shouldn’t really use screens in such conditions anyway since the eyestrain WILL be increased and just dark mode won’t be enough to alleviate that.


Okay, sure. Using dark mode (and just overall using screens in dimly lit environments) causes the pupil to dilate to force more light to hit the retina. This inherently lowers visual acuity since our pupil acts like a camera aperture, in a way, and a constricted pupil focuses light better and usually SEES better because of it. The extreme example is if you have your pupils dilated to the physiological maximum via drops that you get during an eye exam - your vision blurs significantly. As such, a lot of people see worse with dark mode due to trouble focusing and that causes the eye lens muscles to strain in attempts to compensate. Furthermore, people with refraction errors like myopia and especially astigmatism will often experience halo effects with white on dark text since the light from text bleeds into the background, making reading more straining. That’s one of the reasons why when designing a good dark mode an unspoken rule is to avoid pitch black background and stark bright white text since that exacerbates the issue and can even lead to headaches for users with astigmatism, which can be avoided by using grey-ish background and less bright text, actually. I provided some examples from Apples Reader Mode back in the beginning of the thread.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

OK thanks for the insight, regarding the 2nd paragraph. I mean, I like wide apertures - more light, faster shutter speed, narrower depth of field, more bokeh

So dilated pupils sounds all good to me

Part of what you say is true that a very stark dark mode can feel quite harsh, at least as much as light mode.

Regarding your first paragraph - by "there are arguments to be made that one shouldn’t really use screens in such conditions anyway", do you mean in a dark room etc?

I have very sensitive eyes, to any bright lights, be it sunlight or artificial. I had to return a bunch of LCD monitors recently as most modern LCD monitors are simply too bright for me even on min brightness. In my fairly dark office with no overhead lights, the monitors were kind of eye scorching. I settled on a 48 inch OLED screen which believe it or not, is much gentler on the eyes with much lower min brightness

So for me at least, a dark office with a dark screen/dark mode is much, much easier on the eyes.

 

[Athlonite]

Turned on dark mode and it made no difference to the dark mode I was already running within Vivaldi which I turned on using Vivaldi://flags

Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents​

Automatically render all web contents using a dark theme. – Mac, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, Android :: using selective inversion on everything except pictures

I just set it to disabled and relaunched Vivaldi looks exactly the same so Job well done W1zzard

 

[wheresmycar]

OK thanks for the insight, regarding the 2nd paragraph. I mean, I like wide apertures - more light, faster shutter speed, narrower depth of field, more bokeh

So dilated pupils sounds all good to me

Part of what you say is true that a very stark dark mode can feel quite harsh, at least as much as light mode.

Regarding your first paragraph - by "there are arguments to be made that one shouldn’t really use screens in such conditions anyway", do you mean in a dark room etc?

I have very sensitive eyes, to any bright lights, be it sunlight or artificial. I had to return a bunch of LCD monitors recently as most modern LCD monitors are simply too bright for me even on min brightness. In my fairly dark office with no overhead lights, the monitors were kind of eye scorching. I settled on a 48 inch OLED screen which believe it or not, is much gentler on the eyes with much lower min brightness

So for me at least, a dark office with a dark screen/dark mode is much, much easier on the eyes.

I’m all for dark mode but my eyes do best when the colours are toned down a bit, just enough to take the edge off the glow. Actually I find blacks, whites and greys, a softly applied monotone palette, works best for these aging eyes (perhaps also other less intrusive colours). If not, I find it distracting and prolonged use results with fatigue, etc. I had the same issue with PCPartPicker - those bright product images and glowing fonts/objects on a black background just didn’t sit right. I gave PCPPs dark mode a few tries but in the end, I could never get comfortable with anything other than the default theme.

Saying that, its a whole different experience when I’m in a dark room, like when I’m about to sleep with a phone/tablet/laptop in hand. Dark mode in this setting with reduced brightness makes a nice and much needed difference. When dark-mode isn't available in that setting, I usually lower the screen brightness more aggressively to around 10-20%.

The short version, agreeing with @Onasi - No two eyes share the same lens.

 

[OneMoar]

what about the front page ? id be nice to not need to go blind to get to the forums

 

[biffzinker]

what about the front page ? id be nice to not need to go blind to get to the forums

Is that bit of white really hurting your eyes?

 

[OneMoar]

Is that bit of white really hurting your eyes?

yes all white must die

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Dark Reader should be compatible with SeaMonkey. Give it a go.


Don't think so. Honestly don't remember and I don't want to mess with it..

EDIT: Just checked it, don't have a banner loaded. Maybe it's an auto colour selection based on my Avatar?

EDIT2: Just looked at @AsRock 's profile and his banner has the same default colour to it. So maybe it's your browser doing something custom?

Nope, yours is the default color. You just happened to be the nearest poster that I knew had no banner image.

If you look at @tabascosauz , it is a mostly white image for a banner. Almost the same as @cvaldes in terms of spacing, and the formatting of the username etc.

https://tdepix.io/pictures/TPU.mp4

provided.

Owwww

 

[Space Lynx]

I honestly love this new dark mode, I think it is perfect the way it is. I am not experiencing any of my "retina image retention" issues I normally experience with dark modes, so well done indeed. I can't remember what website it was, but there was a tech site that for many years had a black background and red text, I would read off that site for 30 seconds, and the lines would be burned into my retinas and i'd have to blink and look away from my screen for a minute or two for it to go away. Not having that issue at all here.

I'd be ok if the long service badges went away though, they sort of glare amongst all the other smoothness, I don't know how to explain it. Or maybe the red power button on the badge could be dimmed some or grayed out.